


Disarm

by Nerve_Itch



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (depending on whether the word 'retch' can be considered erotic), Amputation, Biting, Domestic Bliss, Forced Vomiting, I thought I'd run out of problematic kinks after the whole woundfucking thing, JustFuckMeUp, M/M, Medical Procedures, Sickfic, all of which is pretty much the equivalent of a party for these two, anyway, autocannibalism, but this has helped me realise that there are deeper depths, emotional torment through use of excessive puns, eroticised vomiting, from both Hannibal and the author, here have some (mostly consensual) suffering, to the people who created this hannibal kinkfest: I salute you, to which I can gleefully plummet, tortureporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerve_Itch/pseuds/Nerve_Itch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will knows – which means that Hannibal knows, too – that for all their bodies have defied many of the wounds and infections that threatened to fell them, not everything heals. Will’s shoulder has endured too much, from the bullet holes that weakened, to the knife that severed, and the heavy smash of rock which cracked something unfixable inside. </p><p>For Will, it's a thing to be endured. For Hannibal, it's an opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disarm

 

“Sorry.”

It’s more an acknowledgment than an apology, muttered through sleep-heavy lips. Hannibal nods, accepting, and says nothing of the smarting impact of Will’s heel into his shin. He’s simply relieved it wasn’t his stomach that bore brunt of it, this time. The bedding is a tangle of damp Egyptian cotton, and Will is peeling it away from him, using only his left hand.

Hannibal doesn’t assist. His voice has the forced demeanour of sympathy when he speaks, watching the clench in Will’s jaw and brow grow stronger.

“Perhaps I’ll take the couch?”

Will shakes his head. He’s twisting himself from the bed, pulling his right hand into a limp fist. It isn’t stilling the twitch of errant muscles running from fingertips to shoulder. Nothing has, these past weeks. Through them all, Will has bitten back his impulses to react to the damages done, focusing instead on tending to the hole in Hannibal’s gut, to exploring facets of touch not linked to injuries. He’s been learning how to open his jaws without tearing at stitches, and how to recognise tenderness when it emerges through the carnage. He’s learning to enjoy it, too. There are hungers neither of them had fully known until they tried to sate them with each other, and now they’re perpetually starved. Except now, Will knows that his nightly ritual – the fitful waking, the thinly disguised distress – is raising a new barrier between them. Hannibal’s suggestion of how to resolve the issue – an explanation of the uselessness of the limb twitching at Will’s right shoulder socket – had first been spoken in pathos-filled jest. Now, it’s being spoken without humour or words, in the severe glance from beneath Hannibal’s heavy lidded eyes.

Will deflects it, tells Hannibal that he’s having a shower, tells him to go back to sleep. He leans, reaches to move strands of hair from Hannibal’s forehead in a gesture he’s not familiar with, one that impulse has guided him to. He pulls his hand back before it can linger, reacting as though stung. These small tokens that fall between their moments of great revelations and established familiarities are still new, still uncharted. Hannibal only smiles, stiff but somehow satisfied.

“Sorry.”

This time, Will sounds apologetic.

He’ll shower, letting the hot water drill at his shoulder until the nerves beneath the surface quieten. If there’s enough left in their meagre reserves of muscle relaxants and opiates, he might top up. If not, there’s an obnoxiously expensive brandy in the living room that serves as an adequate duller of the senses. And he’ll weather this, because that’s what Will does. It’s only pain, and he’s an old hand at that; it’s the static that fills what he wishes was silence. If Hannibal can muster stoicism at the rips and burns and slices of his own body, then Will must be able to, too.

Except, Will knows – which means that Hannibal knows, too – that for all their bodies have defied many of the wounds and infections that threatened to fell them, not everything heals. Will’s shoulder has endured too much, from the bullet holes that weakened, to the knife that severed, and the heavy smash of rock which cracked something unfixable inside. No slings or stretches have afforded it ample reprieve. He imagines the sinew inside it shredded, tangled like hair. There’s nothing strong enough left in there, between the bones and the skin and the blood, to let him make a fist. The dexterity that twisted motors and lures into place, it’s been replaced with something blunt and fumbling. For Will, it feels like a weakness; a thing to be endured or disguised. For Hannibal, it is perhaps a problem. But for Hannibal, it’s an opportunity.

The memory of Hannibal’s suggestion follows Will to the shower. _No point in carrying dead weight._ Will holds his arm, as though testing the life within it, still. It doesn’t _feel_ dead, not when it’s still causing so much pain. It’s part of him, and he’s becoming acclimatised to the fact that he’s more alive than he’s ever been. He can’t consolidate the two things; the death inside his skin, and the hot burn of life renewed. As the water stills and the quiet thrum of Hannibal’s breathing carries across the hallway, Will can’t shake the knowledge that in some urgent an inescapable way, he’s running out of time. Or, a part of him is.

He’ll spare the painkillers, tonight. Save them for Hannibal.

He’s less sure on how to save himself.

 

 

-

 

 

Hannibal wakes long after dawn to cold sunlight and the dissipating scent of Will’s skin. His thoughts begin their swift arrangement into threads of plans and observations, and anticipation of the day ahead speeds him fully into wakefulness.

He finds Will in the living room, a contorted bundle of sweat and cotton on the couch. He’s awake, almost, but the book in his hand is some distance from where his eyes are not entirely aimed. Hannibal smells the brandy before he sees the glass, and then the bottle. He suppresses a wince when he sees how little remains in the base of it. Their luxuries these new days are sparse, and he’d been hoping to spend some time savouring it.

“Will.”

Will’s eyelids flicker with the effort of focusing.

“Morning.”

It comes out somewhere between a mumble and a cough.

Hannibal considers breakfast, and then considers that Will’s tastebuds may be temporarily numbed to things as subtle as food by this point. As Will unfolds his legs from where they’re tucked beneath him, stumbling against the length of the insubstantial dressing gown, Hannibal decides that there is no volume of sustenance in the house that would be sufficient to mop up the quantities of alcohol in Will’s system.

Hannibal finds himself gravely disappointed. He’d intended today to provide the platform for solving the problem of Will’s failing shoulder, but Will’s current inebriation would push the procedure from the realms of mere risk into potentially fatal territory. He’s used to a certain decadence when it comes to Will’s consumption of varying shades of liquor, but this is far exceeding even those broad standards.

“I need to piss,” announces Will. He stands without any semblance of grace, and Hannibal is there to rebalance him when his legs fail to make the necessary motions to support him.

“I assume from your condition that our stocks of medication are thoroughly depleted,” Hannibal says, one arm guiding Will toward the bathroom by his waist. “For you to have compromised so enthusiastically with spirits.”

Will nods, looking faintly grey. “N’yet. Left ‘nough for you.”

“How considerate.”

Hannibal pushes the bathroom door open, permitting himself the smallest of sighs when Will fails to extricate himself from Hannibal’s loose hold. This is not his preferred form of dependency.

Will hesitates at the threshold until Hannibal steers him into the white room, lifting the seat of toilet and pulling the folds of Will’s dressing gown out of the path of his fumbling hands.

Will seems oblivious to the assistance, holding himself and swaying lightly as he pisses. The stream thins as Will blinks with force, craning his neck to face Hannibal.

“Why’re you here?”

Tempting though it is to divert Will’s question into a debate in existentialism, Hannibal opts for the path of least amusement, simply explaining that he feared for Will’s ability to manage it himself.

“Oh.”

Will shakes himself off with no small degree of force, wobbling on his feet. When he reaches out to steady himself against the cistern, it’s his right arm that takes his weight. In the contractions of muscles that follow, Will successfully manages to undo almost all of the analgesic benefits of his drinking. He swears in a roar, a wet and furious sound. Hannibal steps closer behind him, scooping his arms around Will’s middle until Will relaxes – as much as Will can ever relax without warning – into his hold.

“Will.”

Will presses the thumb of his left hand into the palm of his right.

“We can fix this, Will.”

He grips at his own wrist, shaking the numb digits, as though trying to shake the pain out of the rest of his arm. Hannibal tightens his grip.

“But – Will, focus please – we can’t fix it while you’re shitfaced.”

Will stops, then, momentarily sobered by the shift in Hannibal’s language.

“I’ll be fine ‘n a few hours,” Will asserts.

“No,” Hannibal tells him, thumbing a line across Will’s forearm. “You won’t be.”

Will moves to twist from Hannibal’s firm embrace, to back away from the toilet, and finds himself held in place.

“You need to purge this from your system.”

“Just…give me a few hours.”

Hannibal ignores the request, scanning the bathroom for a receptacle to hold water. The glass that holds their toothbrushes fits the purpose, and Hannibal is filling it with water from the sink, holding it in front of Will’s loosely closed mouth.

“Not thirsty,” Will says, something provocative and playful creeping through the slurring.

“Drink, Will.”

Will keeps his mouth stubbornly closed and seems largely unaware that Hannibal is guiding him to his knees on the bathroom floor.

“I think the bath may be better for this, don’t you?”

Will sits back on his heels, blinks, and then Hannibal has one hand in his hair whilst the other tilts water into his open mouth. Will swallows, because the only alternative would be to spit, and he knows how _rude_ that would be.

After the second glass of tepid water, Will looks decidedly greyer. As Hannibal fills the glass a third time, Will remembers how to protest.

He shakes his head with vigour, feeling steadily infantilised by the process until Hannibal holds him firmly by the hair, the glass pressed against his bottom lip.

“I’m gonna be – ”

His mouth is open just long enough for Hannibal to tilt the glass and send water cascading into his mouth, down his chin and onto his chest. Will moves to spit, and then Hannibal’s hand is over his mouth, fingers acting as a concertina closing it shut, his thumb pressing over Will’s nose in a fold.

“That is the idea, yes.”

Will swats at Hannibal’s arms, movements still loose from inebriation, face turning redder and his cheeks still full.

“Swallow. Swallow, and you’ll feel better.”

At the reluctant contraction of Will’s throat, Hannibal drops his hands, resting them on Will’s shoulders.

“Better?”

There’s the beginning sound of a curse, and then there’s the lurch; a clench of Will’s stomach, and a retch let loose from his throat.

The retching gathers water, and Hannibal tilts Will’s head over the rim of the bathtub, one hand stroking at the nape of his neck.

Will tries to sit back as Hannibal reaches for a towel.

“Couldn’t you let me stay drunk?” Will asks, as Hannibal dabs moisture from his chin.

“No, Will. Not on this day.”

Will blinks heavily, grasping at his thoughts for the significance of what’s so important about this day that he has to suffer sobriety for it. A wave of fresh pain in his arm distracts him, and then it reminds him.

Oh.

He’s going to be _fixed_.

The thought pulls another heave from his stomach, an acidic gasp, and a drizzle of thick water gathers from his throat until he spits.

“You understand what must be done.”

Hannibal lets his hands move over Will’s back, his forehead, his stomach, his hair, and Will feels like a parcel being wrapped.

Will lurches again, spits again. His throat feels lumpen.  

The elusive threat of what Hannibal is offering him, his remedy, it doesn’t yet feel dangerous. It doesn’t feel real. Will holds onto his arm, reminding himself that it’s still there, and still causing no small amount of distress. He shouldn’t begrudge Hannibal his methods; he’s helping him, after all.

“Wait here. I’ll only be a moment.”

At that, Hannibal’s touch withdraws, replaced briefly by a warm press of lips to the back of Will’s neck. His spine furls at the touch, and when it pulls away, Will finds that he misses it.

He wilts against the side of the bath. Nausea has him fully, now, but he lacks the energy to expel it, muscles already trembling. His neck feels warm.

A moment passes, and at its end, Hannibal reappears with a larger glass. This one, it’s filled with an opaque liquid. Will decides that it looks like a cloud trapped in a cylinder, and that it doesn’t belong there. Hannibal kneels behind him, leaning to his left side so that all functional limbs are now safely tucked between chest and bath and floor.

This time, he tries to show more willing, opening his mouth to accept the liquid, hoping for something to swill the acrid taste from his mouth. In the second it takes him to gulp it down, he tastes something like oranges, like almonds, and like rot. And then the taste is back at his tonsils, pushing through his teeth and spattering into the bathtub.

He thinks that after this, he might not drink for a while.

And then Hannibal’s touch is there again, the flat of his hands hot against his shoulder blades, and Will doesn’t remember removing the bathrobe, but he’s grateful for the air and for the ways the molecules of skin are allowed to touch.

“Another.”

Now Will knows what’s coming, it’s harder to acquiesce. He faces Hannibal, not trying to convey anything himself but looking for the clues as to how much of this is for his own benefit. There’s an almost smile on Hannibal’s face, more in the eyes than at the corners of his mouth. Will had hoped it would soothe him, somehow, but the coolness of it frightens him.

He holds his breath, and gulps.

There’s a pause, this time. Long enough for the rancid flavour to permeate every taste receptor, and for the curdling in his gut to grow motion.

What comes out still feels insubstantial, and when Hannibal peers at the textured puddle growing in mass, he looks displeased.

“Sorry,” Will says, though he’s not entirely sure why.

The offending glass is placed on the floor, and the towel is mopping at Will’s chin, and then Hannibal’s warm hand is at the side of his face, resting lightly across the almost healed stitching.

It’s reassurance, and respite. And then, Will’s mouth is opened, and Hannibal’s fingers are reaching past his teeth. His head is pulled back, and Will gags as a fingertip nudges lightly at his tonsils. His throat has a pulse; he can feel it dilating and shrinking in spasms. His jaws lock, open, and knuckles are pushing at the roof of his mouth.

“Allow yourself to relax.”

Will thinks that of all the circumstances in which he could permit himself some relaxation, this is not a viable one. His eyes are streaming, his nose is running, and he’s experiencing reflexes in back of his throat that no previous encounters with Hannibal have alerted him to.

Hannibal’s hand pushes deeper, and Will’s wriggling now, trying to extricate himself from a grip so invasive that he begins to imagine himself impaled.

“Almost,” Hannibal offers with encouragement.

 _Almost_ becomes _imminent_ , and then Hannibal’s hand slithers out, coated with a gloss of the contents of Will’s stomach. Everything else follows in a torrent, splashing against the sides of the bath. Will gasps, accepts another sip of water, and heaves again, _again_ , until his throat feels pulverised and Hannibal’s satisfied that he’s truly empty.

Will sits back on his heels, drained, folding back into Hannibal’s damp touch. His senses are swift to return, the dominant one being taste. For a moment, he considers taking this opportunity to kiss Hannibal by way of revenge, but his tongue feels thick and poisonous. That, and he’s not sure he could handle the inevitable retaliation that would follow.

His thoughts turn from playful doubt into a thick dread as the vagaries of Hannibal’s earlier promises begin to take form, and they take hold as Hannibal pours water through the bath with the shower head, purging the mess with practiced fastidiousness.

“It’s the only way,” Will says, and he meant it as a question, as something to be refuted. Instead, it sounds like acceptance.

Hannibal hears him over the charging of water against ceramic.

“Yes.”

Will had hoped, perhaps, for some eloquence to soften the meaning. Pretty words, instead of bluntness. Then, he finds that he no longer feels comfortable with the word _blunt_. It brings to mind heavy rounded edges, metallic tools that take too long to penetrate, limbs that aren’t limbs anymore. He’s distracted by his thoughts speeding inside his skull towards images of his impending dissection, and doesn’t see Hannibal gesture from where he stands, naked, in the bathtub, the showerhead now in place and the curtain pulled across its spray.

“It will help,” Hannibal says, and Will isn’t sure that they share the same definition of the word. He stands, pushing up on one arm. Hannibal supports him as he steps over the rim of the tub, and Will looks down, almost expecting to still see trails of vomit. He’s relieved when he’s met with only gleaming white.

“It won’t be so different, after,” Hannibal tells him, lathering gel between his hands and swathing the suds across Will’s chest. Will is hesitant to reciprocate the intimacy; he feels hollowed, fragile, still. _Gutted_ , his mind suggests, and Will fights the small recoil from Hannibal’s touch.

“You don’t trust me?” Hannibal suggests, water creating a blur of his features but still, Will knows the expression he’s making.

“I do. And that’s still…frightening,” Will says, and he’s moved closer again, scooping foam from his own chest to Hannibal’s until there’s no space left between them. “There’s a dissonance to it.”

“Hmm.”

Will isn’t used to Hannibal not having an answer to things, and neither is Hannibal.

“I’ve placed more trust in you than I’ve known,” Will says, taking the shampoo bottle from Hannibal. “It’s left a mark on me.” He tucks the bottle in the crook of his elbow, tilting to aim it into his scooped hand. Hannibal takes it from him, pours a dollop with two working sets of fingers, and ghosts his fingers toward Will’s navel.

“Several,” Hannibal agrees. “Though it’s not been without reciprocity.”

Will massages the shampoo into Hannibal’s hair, already practiced in how to navigate the methods of their intimacy with limited movement, reassuring himself that perhaps it really won’t be so different, after.

“You’ve set so many parts of yourself free,” Hannibal says, and now his fingers are massaging soap into the soft skin inside Will’s thigh. “Will this one really be so hard?”

Will bites at Hannibal’s collarbone, suckers his mouth until he’s sure he’ll leave a mark. It’s a reflexive response to any form of punning, and Will’s sure by now that Hannibal has realised this, and that it’s only incentivised him to continue. The marks from previous transgressions support his theory. He’s smiling – they both are, loose and damp and easy. Except, Will’s not hard, not quite. The gentle pressing of fingers between his legs, the swelling of Hannibal against his groin, it’s familiar. Exciting, almost. But the encroaching dread of loss and the yowling hollow in his gut won’t let him respond. Not the way he wants to.

“You’ll need to rest, after,” Hannibal says, touch more gentle in response to Will’s lack of it. He pulls Will into him instead, wraps his arms across his back and Will mirrors the movement, only it feels like only half of him can engage.

Will tries. He moves his hands, both of them, tries to ignore the locking and jerking of nerves as he feels for Hannibal’s cock. It shifts at his touch, trapped in the thin gaps between their skin, silky from shower gel and, as Will slides his deadened hand across the head, from Hannibal himself.

“Last chance,” Will says, and somewhere between the words forming in his mind and leaving his lips, the teasing, gentle tone has disappeared and what comes out sound utterly dejected. Hannibal is already loaded, too fully immersed in the impulses and sensations that Will delights in pulling from him. He hears the misery in Will’s voice, can’t avoid it, but he’s still new to this. Will tries to thrive off the vulnerability he induces in Hannibal, uses his good hand to create a steady friction and wonders if he’ll feel gratification by proxy. He’s still no more than stirring, and this, Will thinks, is enough. It’s a distraction.

Then, Hannibal’s fingers are wrapped between his, and his good hand is being pushed aside. Will feels his cramping, loose digits being manipulated around Hannibal’s shaft, and he nods agreement into the crook of Hannibal’s shoulder.

“Last chance,” Hannibal murmurs, his voice like wet sand.

It feels like an offering; the last function of his limb, and just for Hannibal’s benefit.

Hannibal stutters water as a finger, firm and dextrous, slides through the cleft of his buttocks.

Will pushes, not much, _enough_. He’s biting at skin, feels merged with Hannibal, and then there’s the tremble; his mouth against bared throat as Hannibal seizes, splashing against Will’s hand and stomach. Hannibal gasps, and Will feels breathless at the sound. At some point, he’s started clutching Hannibal, and their limbs are a knot, together. Conjoined.

“You are already proficient with your left hand, I see.”

Will nips at Hannibal’s shoulder, teeth aimed at the muscle. Hannibal looks inordinately satisfied.

“Did you just…?”

“Come. We’ll get you properly clean. You’ll rest for a few hours, and then we’ll begin.”

 

 

-

 

 

“Many people report some phantom sensations even after the limb has gone.”

“Real pain’s not enough. Have to expect the _apparition_ of pain, too.”

Will is sitting up on the steel table usually reserved for the dead. The basement location is not soothing his nerves, despite every reassurance from Hannibal. He’s rested, technically. He’d followed Hannibal’s instructions, bundled himself up in blankets and dozed for as much of the afternoon as his discomfort allowed. Now, he’s vividly alert, naked beneath the dome-covered light bulb, the table reflecting the pallid hue of his skin. Hannibal is laying pillows at the head of the table, and a quilted towel across the middle of it. He’s clothed, in a sense; scrubs that are less than generous in size, swinging some height above his ankles. There’s music playing, a light and delicate blend of melodies that Will imagines he will never want to hear again.

“By bearing witness to the process, it will provide you with a memory to refer back to. The proof of the act, even when your mind attempts to convince you otherwise.”

Will swings his legs up, lets Hannibal arrange him.

“You just want to see me squirm.”

“That is another benefit, yes.”

Will tries to shift the towel beneath him, and is stopped.

“No.” In answer to Will’s raised eyebrow, he elaborates. “I acquired most of the required supplies, but had to exit the dispensary before I could acquire a catheter.”

There’s too much for Will to focus on any one piece of information, not least because Hannibal is now reaching for the straps linked to the underbelly of the table. The detail that he might be expected to piss himself seems less relevant than his most immediate fear.

“ _Most_ of?”

Padded leather winds across Will’s ankles in turn, and he hushes the instinct to kick out before the buckles are threaded.

“Betadine, Mepivacaine and Fentanyl among others, and a substantial replenishment of analgesics, as the dispensary had no suitable liquor substitute. The scalpel and saw I already have.”

“When you say ‘dispensary’…”

“All hospitals are dispensaries if you present the right credentials."

The straps and buckles are multiplying, wrapping around chest, stomach, left arm, wrist, and right shoulder. It would be overkill, if it were only for practicality. Will feels separate from what’s about to happen, as though severed from his own body in preparation. And then, he shifts; a small movement, an adjustment for comfort, and his body can’t follow through on the motion. The straps holding him feel exactly as restrictive as they look, and the sense that he is no longer in control grows stronger.

“The process will take less than an hour, including stitches.”

Will doesn’t think it’s right that such an act should be assigned such an arbitrary unit of time.

“The separation itself is the quickest part,” Hannibal says. “The difficulty is, as always, with the aftermath.”

A needle punctures Will’s armpit, an echo of an earlier, lesser surgery.

“A stronger blend, this time,” Hannibal explains. “Breathe, Will.”

Will does, closes his eyes and feels latex covered fingers on his forehead.

“How much use am I going to be to you, after?”

The tourniquet tightens, and Will worries that he’s able to _feel_ it.

“Are you so steeped in doubt that you imagine your worth to be measured only as usefulness? You’re not a pack mule, Will.”

There’s a feeling like cold air on his bicep. When Will looks, there’s a liquid ribbon of watery red across the radius of his upper arm. Too translucent for blood.

“More hygienic than conventional Iodine,” Hannibal explains.

Will means to say that he felt it, and if he could feel a splash of liquid, then he’s going to feel the carving of bone. Instead, he asks about prosthetic attachments. He hasn’t prepared. There’s been no research, on his side. No real acceptance. He isn’t _ready_.

“For aesthetics, there will be many options,” Hannibal says, and now there’s a feeling like ice in his arm. When Will looks, there’s a river of red, and the head of the scalpel buried in his arm. The damage is proportionately more severe than the sensation, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was trapping in his lungs.

“But for practical function, there is insufficient strength in this muscle for most models. Would you like to see it? The muscle?”

Will would not like to see.

And yet, he finds himself watching as short panels of flesh are cut into the meat of his arm, and then folded back; loops of skin held back to cover the stump of bone. His pulse feels thin.

“I’m…not sure this as therapeutic as you led me to believe, _doctor_.”

“This is an opportunity to know yourself that few of us will ever experience.”

“Inside and out.”

“Inside and out,” Hannibal echoes.

The slicing continues; threads of musculature springing away in the wake of the scalpel’s path, kelly clamps closing the gaping mouths of arteries, and even with the oblique view, it’s too clear. There’s still enough sensory information being passed between the cutting and the amygdala for Will to know, indisputably, what’s being done to him. _For_ him, his brain reminds him, in a voice suspiciously similar to Hannibal’s.

To Will’s pride and credit, he doesn’t blanche, not until bandages form a sash beneath the now-exposed bone, and it’s pulled back and forth until the last clinging remnants of red fibre have attached themselves to the gauze. The sight of his own humerus imprints in his mind and this, this is not an image he will be able to shake out.

“Stay with me, Will.”

There’s sticky latex on his cheek, and this – this is the bit Will can’t process. The way he’s being treated so kindly, despite his circumstances. He shifts, instinctively, to meet the touch more fully. He’s stopped by the straps; confined to his position to simply accept whatever contact is offered.

His skin feels cold, clammy, and his head is full of howling air. He’s watching the run of red from the leaking fibres of his arms, not feeling it until it seeps into the quilted towel beneath him.

“There will be some discomfort from the vibrations,” Hannibal tells him, pragmatic.

“Wait.”

Hannibal hesitates; isn’t used to performing procedures with the consent of the patient, much less with a vested interest in their emotional comfort, beyond the courtesies he insists on employing.

“It would be better to do this quickly, Will. The anaesthetic won’t last indefinitely.”

Will nods, closes his eyes. He opens them when something soft, heavy and wet presses against his lips, and then his mouth opens, and there’s the damp press of tongue inside his mouth. There’s sticky red on his face from Hannibal’s hand when he withdraws, and it’s so incongruous, but Will feels better, somehow. Protected.

“You do that for all your patients, _doctor_?”

Hannibal doesn’t answer, only raises the cloth faceguard over his nose.

The sawing starts. Electronic, fast and Hannibal was right; there’s a discomforting sensation of vibration that sings through the table, through the bones still connected, and Will finds that he’s glad he spent so much time throwing up this morning, because the impulse to do the same now has no energy left to it.

Something clicks.

Will looks, and then the length of his arm is laid flat on the steel bench, separate from him. Detached. There’s still some of him left, beneath his shoulder; some small inches, obscured by the skin peeled back. Will wants it all back. Where it was.

His stomach lurches, and then that sticky latexed hand is in his hair again.

“This next will smooth the end of it,” Hannibal says, the vibrations resuming, thinner this time.

Music still twinkles unobtrusively behind the noise of it.

Hannibal moves the detached limb from the table, rests it behind him next to the small array of tools, and now, the loss is real. If Will could only _reach_ , touch, it would be okay. He jerks on the bench, imagines reaching with his right side. Something twitches; enough that Hannibal pulls the filing saw away, but as Will continues, forcing all effort, all concentration into making something move, nothing further happens. Perhaps, it’s just the anaesthetic.

“Will, please.”

Will doesn’t want to please. He wants his arm back.

“We’ll test your range of motion when we are done, and when you’re rested. For now, you need to allow me to help you. Will you let me help you?”

Will motions with his mouth like a fish on land.

“Do you trust me, still?”

Will nods, feels the surge of blood vessels in his head.

“Distract me,” Will demands. “Please.”

“You need to be present, Will.”

Will feels his power being sapped from him with every assertion spoken by Hannibal.

“But I’m not, present. Not all of me.”

Hannibal rests a hand on Will’s chest, smearing it.

“Each day, you shed skin cells. The cells of your body die and renew, and you are no lesser for it. This is not so –”

“Stop it.”

Hannibal concedes, and soothes Will in the only way he has learned how; places a kiss to the sweating skin of his forehead and murmurs a brief encouragement with hot breath in his ear.

“You can overcome anything, Will. You overcome me, repeatedly. You can overcome this too.”

Will’s nodding, allowing the filing, and then the tugging and the stitching of folds of skin across the rounded marrow of his bone. His _stump_.

“Besides, you are already proving most proficient with your left hand. This morning proved that,” Hannibal comments, a triangular segment of dermis being manipulated between his fingers as he repositions the needle.

“ _Hannibal_.”

Hannibal looks pleased with himself. “Would you prefer I restrict all commentary to the deadly serious while we do this?” he asks, pulling surgical thread through thin punctures in skin.

“You weren’t going to distract me,” Will points out.

“I believe we are now on the home stretch. Less for you to take in. I need to move you, Will.”

The straps across Will’s stomach and chest loosen, and then there’s another pillow in the small of his back and he’s twisted away from Hannibal, an awkward angle with his right ankle still attached to the table’s edge.

Hannibal’s sat at his side, now, manoeuvring the remaining stretches of skin and sculpting it like leather. At some point, the pattern of kneading and pricking and pulling stops, and then there’s a snap of latex, a soft friction around the remnants of the limb, and Hannibal’s arms sliding over Will; _both_ arms, fully functional and attached, and Will can already feel the resentment in him building.

A question forms in Will’s mind, one that’s sat there since this started, but wouldn’t gather the coherence to make itself _real_. Will speaks it, now, half delirious from painkillers and laid horizontal once again.

“What are you planning to _do_ with my arm?”

Hannibal’s loading another syringe, this time directing to Will’s neck. He explains that it’s for the pain, though Will suspects he will soon be unconscious from it. He’s grateful for the respite.

“We’ll do it together,” Hannibal says, “when you wake.”

Will regrets asking.

 

 

 _

 

 

It’s morning again when Will next wakes, swathed in soft covers and his nose filled with the scent of what he hopes is breakfast. His stomach is an empty, gurgling thing, and his memories of the previous day swiftly gather to remind him why.

He feels for the stump before he can look. Touches stiff gauze, and thin tubing from the side of it. He passes his hand below its end, slicing his palm in and out of the space where his arm isn’t.

It doesn’t unnerve him so much, now. The severing has already happened, and what remains still seems…adequate.

Then, he’s looking; pushing himself up the bed, then out of it, and staring at the space around him. Space he wouldn’t otherwise have seem.

It takes a few moments before he notices the relative absence of pain. A dimming of the static into a near quiet. This, _this_ was the purpose of yesterday. The freedom from his own scratched nerve endings. He tries not to imagine how it’ll feel when the drugs wear off and the soreness of his wound is permitted to smart.

He pulls trousers from the wardrobe, and sets about pulling them up over his feet.

First, he tries from sitting, leaning over the side of the bed and pulling the waistband toward him, nudging his feet through one at a time. Then, after they’ve slid from his ankles more than twice, he tugs faster, half sliding from the mattress in order to get as much leg into the fabric before they can slide down again. Then, he shuffles further up the mattress, pulling the garment first from the front, then twisting to tug it from the back, until he’s shimmied it past his butt. His skin is damp from exertion by the time he’s got his fingers coiled at the zipper, but the fabric pulls away from him when he tries to tug it shut. He tries again, tries twisting onto his side, but the zipper remains stubbornly open. He secures the button at the top with more luck, tries a third time with the zipper, and is in the middle of a protracted stream of cursewords when Hannibal appears in the doorway.

“I thought you might like breakfast,” he says, as Will renders himself obediently mute.

“Would you like a hand?” Hannibal asks.

Will resumes his cursing, only this time it’s directed fully at Hannibal and at the fact there is nothing within reach that he can throw at him.

Hannibal weathers it with grace, helping Will into a shirt and arranging the hem of the sleeve around the bandages. He pulls Will into him when he stands, holds until Will reciprocates the hug as best he can.

 

 

_

 

 

Breakfast smells divine; herb-poached eggs, roast mushrooms and two thin crescents of steak on each plate.

“Braised in truffle oil, with paprika and lemon to draw out the flavour.”

Will sits, notes how both his knife and fork have been positioned to the left of his plate. As he looks closer, he sees that the meat on his plate has already been dissected for him; tiny slices, rearranged in the shape of a crescent.

Will doesn’t ask what the meat is. Doesn’t need to. He watches as Hannibal positions a segment of it on his fork, and he watches as he chews. His discreet elation seems to vibrate through the dining table.

Will follows, and now Hannibal’s enjoyment comes from watching Will, watching as the hunger turns to satisfaction as he swallows the taste of _himself_.

“You’ve cooked me well,” Will offers. Sincere praise, tempered only by the mild concern that he’s not even slightly abhorred by what he’s doing.

“I will never tire of ways to eat you, Will.”

Will stutters as he swallows, still not used to the ways in which Hannibal can take him off guard.

“I would prefer this to not be your regular method,” Will says, reaching for juice to soothe his throat. “Where _is_ the rest of it, Hannibal?”

Hannibal chews, slowly, not daring to rush a moment of enjoyment.

“Preserved, with form,” he answers eventually. “Its uses do not have to be confined to eating.”

“Are you saying…?” Will begins asking, but finds that he isn’t sure what Hannibal is saying.

“I am not planning to take advantage of your limb when you are not present, if that is your concern.”

Will isn’t sure that this was his concern, until now.

He takes another mouthful instead, and thinks he finds the taste of himself more flavourful than he would have anticipated; he’d expected bitterness to infuse every part of him.

“So…” Will tries again, “I am to be present?”

“Of course.”

“For…?”

Hannibal takes two more mouthfuls before he suggests an answer, allowing the possibilities to percolate in the silence.

“For those moments when you perhaps crave a more familiar touch.”

The fork falls from Will’s hand with an ungraceful clatter. “Jesus, Christ.”

“You pretend to be appalled but your mind is already concocting the scenario.”

Will can’t answer, can’t let his thoughts travel the direction Hannibal is leading them to. He stabs at the food on his plate and tries not to wonder too hard about the many decisions, made and unmade, that led him here. Then, he’s reminded that he wouldn’t want to unravel them, even if he could; that he’s made peace with what he’s lost. Or could make peace with it, if Hannibal weren’t ready to dredge each loss back from its past.

“Forgive me, Will,” says Hannibal, the word used as lightly as it has ever sounded from his mouth. “I merely thought it might come in handy.”

The force with which Will pushes his chair back shakes the table, and before the smile on Hannibal’s face can fully reach his mouth, Will is behind him, his remaining arm looped around Hannibal’s neck and the crook in his elbow narrowing.

“I might be _hindered_ by this,” says Will through gritted teeth, tone just on the cusp of unthreatening. “But I can still kill you with one arm if I have to.”

Hannibal wriggles against the grip, finding himself pleasantly surprised by the strength of it.

“I know,” he rasps in answer. “I would prefer you not to.”

Will loosens his grip, his point adeptly made. “Me too.”

Hannibal pulls Will onto his lap, holds him at a right angle as he pulls air back into his lungs.

“You will never be defeated by what happens to you,” Hannibal offers as assurance.

“Until I am,” Will counters.

Hannibal pulls Will closer, until his lazy heartbeat presses against his chest and Will’s head rests against his own.

“I’ve happened to you, and you’ve survived that. Despite my best efforts, at times.”

“Those were never your best efforts. And you didn’t _happen_ to me, Hannibal. We happened, with each other. It’s a dance.”

Will leans down, then. Opens his mouth, presses loosely over Hannibal’s until they match each other in motion. He kisses Hannibal like it’s the first time he’s been allowed to; the small gestures of intimacy now coming to him freely, urgently.

When they break apart, it’s slow, sloppy, the taste of meat still thick between them.

“You always manage to surprise me,” Hannibal says, as Will moves his legs to sit over him in a straddle. “You’re supposed to be _resting_.”

Will nods, his arm hooked around Hannibal’s neck for balance, his tongue against Hannibal’s ear as he whispers. “I needed to know that I could still catch you off balance.”

Hannibal shudders against him.

This is their dance. More tease than realisation, more adversity than victory. And yet, somehow, they can’t stop themselves from keeping step.

“I would suggest,” Hannibal whispers in return, breath hot against Will’s mouth, “that the word you mean is…”

Will raises his teeth against Hannibal’s ear in anticipation of the monstrosity about to be spoken.

“ _Disarm_.”

Will bites.

He tastes blood, but no cartilage. Hannibal allows himself the pain of it, the burning smart of his ear, and he smiles.

He looks at Will, _his_ Will, with his bloodied mouth and warping smile, the controlled way in which his body balances over him, and knows that there is nothing he would change, about anything.

 

For now.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *applauds reader for making it through* 
> 
> (I will discreetly use this space to apologise for a) being hella late with the submission and b) not updating the ongoing fic and to promise that it has not been abandoned and c) taking everything just a bit too far)


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